April 15
Wei Wang,
Institute of Logic and Cognition, Sun Yat-sen University
Non-standard models of arithmetic and their standard systems
PA is the first order fragment of Peano's axiomatization of the natural numbers. The natural numbers, N, is called the standard model of PA. But by compactness theorem in first order logic, there are also models of PA different from N, which are called non-standard models of arithmetic. Like in N, every element of a non-standard model M has a binary expansion, which can be regarded as the characteristic function of a subset of N. The standard system of M is the collection of all such subsets of N. It is known that standard systems of non-standard models are always Scott sets and every Scott set of cardinality less than or equal to the first uncountable cardinal is the standard system of some non-standard model. However, the general Scott set problem, whether every Scott set is the standard system of some non-standard model, remains one of the major open problems in the model theory of arithmetic. This talk will present some history of Scott set problem, as well as two constructions of non-standard models with uncountable standard systems.